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Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Look Smart: New research suggests it pays to dress smart at the office (especially if you want to impress your colleagues)

It’s official. Looking good at work can get you places. Or at least it might stop your work colleagues gossiping about your outfit choice.

It’s official. Looking good at work can get you places. Or at least it might stop your work colleagues gossiping about your outfit choice.

According to new research, looking smart is a top priority for today’s modern professional. In the poll, carried out by One Poll on behalf of the UK government initiative ‘Business is GREAT Britain’, the British office workers questioned admitted they felt a pressure to dress smart from nine to five, for fear of being judged on their performance.

44% of those polled also admitted that they often judged colleagues on their office attire, with ripped jeans, too short, short skirts and branded t-shirts headlining the checklist of serious sartorial faux pas.

Wales was revealed to be home to the highest number of office fashion critics – with 50% admitting to judging fellow workers on their choice of work wear. Among the least judgmental regions was the South West with only 38.7% taking colleagues at clothes value and the laid-back East Midlands, where only 27% of those polled said they would make any kind of sartorial judgement.

Top of the best-dressed business leader list was Lord Alan Sugar, followed by Richard Branson, Interior design entrepreneur Kelly Hoppen and Dragon’s Den investor, Peter Jones.

The results suggest that Britain may well still be a nation of traditionalists, with over two thirds of workers still opting for tailoring – a suit or smart casual look for work and only one in ten of us brave enough to wear whatever we want.

Asked by the ‘Business is GREAT Britain’ campaign to comment, T.M.Lewin CEO, Geoff Quinn said:

‘The results show that as a nation the majority of us still want our work clothes to demonstrate a good work ethic, with 32% of those surveyed here saying they consciously ‘dress to impress’. At T.M.Lewin we dress everyone – from first job graduates, right through to company CEOs and for us, the demand for quality and attention detail has never been higher. Today’s office professional appears to have a pretty good idea of the kind of image they need to project and it’s our job to keep creating fresh, new designs to help them create it.’

www.tmlewin.co.uk